Tag: Evangelicals

  • All Culture is God’s Culture

    See Nicholas Kristof’s post at his New York Times blog which spurred on these thoughts, John Stott and Christian Evangelicals.

    Feedback? If what I’m saying is true, how would this impact how you do ministry in and through your church?

  • Jesus is the worst sales pitch ever

    I'm sure this is a real page turner…

    Have  you ever sat in on a timeshare presentation? You’re on vacation, spending $100 every time you get out of the car with your family, and a very nice front desk person tells you… “Mr. McLane, if you’d be willing to sit down and talk with us about our vacation packages, we’ll give you $100 in cash and free tickets to a show. It’ll only be about an hour.”

    It seems like it will be worth it until you actually do it. For an hour they berate you with every sales tactic in the book. They show you the property. They say, “Imagine coming here for two weeks every year, wouldn’t that be great?” Or “You can trade your weeks for points and go anywhere in the world! And it’ll already be paid for.” Or my favorite, “Mr. McLane, you work hard. Doesn’t your family deserve a vacation like this every year?”

    It’s moment of insincerity, remembering your kids names, relating stories of other pastors who have joined, on and on. The more they talk the more you want to punch them in the face. It’s hard to say $100 for an hour of your time isn’t worth it. But it’s not worth it.

    No offense to those who have bought timeshares. But you go into the presentation either knowing you want to buy one or you don’t.

    In which case, since I’m already wanting to buy in the pitch is useless. And for the person who already knows they don’t want to buy the salesperson is just going through the motions and so are you… you just want to be nice enough to get the $100. (And those who get talked into it are more preyed upon than sold on it, right?)

    It’s all just a game, isn’t it? I know I’m not going to cave and buy a $30,000 timeshare because I don’t want one. And before I arrived at the presentation my wife and I already told ourselves that no matter what, we’re going to be polite, but we’re just taking our $100 and going to the beach later.

    We are not buying a timeshare in Ft. Lauderdale.

    Selling Jesus

    Photo by David Prasad via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    This is, at it’s core, the problem with the “If you build it, they will come” strategy so popular in Christianity.

    The sales manager (aka the pastor) polishes up his sales pitch and tells his sales team (congregation) that if they can bring the prospects, (non-church goers) he will close the deal. (I mean, get them to give their lives to Jesus.)

    When pastors tell their congregation to do this, there is always a sly little smile, as if to say… “They’ll never know that what we’re about to do is tell them about Jesus.”  Yeah– as if visitors are surprised that your marriage seminar is really a Gospel presentation? Doubt it.

    The problem is that the psychology doesn’t work.

    Put yourself in the car of a non-church goer about to visit your church with you. You are either interested or you aren’t before you even get there, right? If you aren’t interested in church you are thinking, “No matter what, just be polite, drink the coffee, and peace out ASAP. I’m doing this for my friend.”

    No amount of manipulation or sales pitch methods will get that person to change their mind. Why? They are locked in as uninterested. And one could argue that those who get talked into it are more preyed upon than sold on it, right?

    The problem is that the theology doesn’t work.

    Jesus isn’t a deal.

    • Regeneration of the soul happens only when the Holy Spirit calls a person to Himself, right? (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter X) A sales pitch can be used by the Holy Spirit. But, as I heard over and over again in Haiti, an earthquake can be just as effective a call.
    • A life with Jesus is messier than a tight 35 minutes with 5 points, isn’t it? While a presentation of the Gospel is excellent at piecing things together in someone’s mind, coming to faith in Christ is more an unwinding of life’s ball of yarn than winding it up into a ball.
    • Jesus promises that a life lived in relationship with Him will be more difficult than a life without Him in your life. (Romans 12:1; John 15:18) That is a pretty tough thing to “sell” from a platform. Come and be like Jesus, who died on a cross penniless and almost no friends!
    • In a world that lives for today, an assurance of heaven, pearly gates, and a mansion tomorrow is a program they don’t want. That doesn’t make salvation any less important. You just can’t stand in front of people and say, “If you were to die tonight… would it be heaven or would it be hell?” Culturally, that’s just not what people are thinking about!

  • Caught between two religions

    If you are a fan of storytelling, and chances are good that you are, you need to subscribe to the Moth podcast. The Moth is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of live storytelling. They put on live storytelling events where members of the audience get a few minutes to tell a story, live and without notes, on a theme. The best stories make it onto the podcast. It’s 13 minutes I look forward to downloading each week.

    The story I’m linking below is poignant for a couple of reasons. First, it’s great storytelling. Jen pulls you in. Second, because the content of her story is just a little too close to home for a lot of my friends. Jen is caught between two worlds, Evangelical Christianity and selling Mary Kay. In the end she isn’t sure which one she is selling anymore.

    1. The Moth Podcast- Jen Lee – Targeted     

    (Note to RSS readers – you can come to the site and listen to the audio)

    As a communicator, storytelling is one of the things I wish I were a lot better at than I am. I’d kill to have a group of friends who regularly got together and practiced telling stories. Some ground rules, some themes, and some live audience feedback to refine the craft. Because ultimately, we need to tell stories that matter!

  • The Gospel is Social

    As I mentioned in my post last night, my head is spinning a little as I think about today’s evangelical church.

    And yet I know that simply by saying that the evangelical church should stop doing church the way they currently that some people will instantly categorize my thought as “social gospel” in order to ignore what God is doing in my heart.

    Here’s the thing. The gospel a social gospel. Pure and simple. Jesus didn’t just come to make a way for us to experience salvation. He also came that we may “do good works” to help bring the Kingdom of God to the people. This means bringing justice and mercy to people who experience injustice and no mercy.

    This is what I’m really asking. Is there any way that the church can stop discriminating? Is there any way we can try to reach all people? Or are we doomed to see the evangelical church target rich white people for another generation? And will that generation tolerate classism towards everyone who is not rich & white?

    What do you think?

  • Secret Sex

    I’ve been around Christians long enough to know that they like to talk about sex. In fact, I know enough about internet traffic to know that only one thing is more popular than a post about sex. In fact, most of you are reading this because you clicked on a link with a keyword you like to click on, “SEX” and are wondering what the secret is all about.

    What’s the one thing more popular than a post about sex? A post about sexual behavior Christians “shouldn’t do but like to talk about.”

    – Homosexuality

    – Cheating

    – Masturbation

    – Pornography

    – Getting caught looking at gay porn and masturbating.

    Here’s some data behind this Christian propensity to search for and click on things about sex. Notice the #1 read item at YMX over the last 2 years by a wide margin… it’s an article called “Solo Sex” and its about masturbation. In the 2 years that article has been on the site it has averaged 25 readers per day! Likewise, my blog data shows that most of my google visits from google searches arrive on terms such as “Christian dating” or “Christian sex.”

    Proving this point further, stop for a second and think about this: “Why are you reading this post? What about the title ‘Secret Sex’ made you click here?” Did I trick you to come here with my blog title? Did you click on a delicious link I served on Twitter? Or were you googling something like “Christian love advice?”

    Here is my theory, disagree with me if you like. I think that internally many evangelicals are wrestling with sexuality. I don’t mean they are worried about their gender preference or even secretly longing to do sinful things. I think that within Christian circles it just isn’t safe to talk about sex which leaves many adult Christians very immature in how they handle sex. So the result is that we talk about sexuality in very immature fashions. (And then we wonder why students have messed up views on sexuality!)

    While in non-Christian circles it isn’t unusual to have some safety within your peer group to talk about sex in an intelligent manner, I know I’ve never found Christian friends willing to have a serious conversation blushing it off as either “naughty” or diverting to childish jokes. (Of course, maybe its just my friends?) So while it may be normal and/or healthy to seek out talking with a peer about something intimate… in our circles we repress that discussion and look for answers privately.

    And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

    I wonder if that repression of the discussion, which in and of itself is amoral but breaks a Christian taboo, is exactly what leads to the gross sexual dysfunction within many churches and marriages. Why can’t Christians just talk about sex? Why do Christians scour the internet searching for answers?

    Sidebar: Of course it could also be that there are so many people out there googling anything to do with sex that this disproportionally elevates the click through rates of posts about sex… that’s a theory worth contemplating without devaluing the overriding question.

    So, what is it?

    – Victorian cultural leftovers permeating Christian culture?

    – Fear?

    – Our mommy told us never to talk about sex, just learn about it the way she did in the library?

    – It should just be repressed. Asking this question proves that Adam is a pervert and just likes to say “sex” a lot.

  • Is James Dobson’s Reign Over?

    James Dobson I’ve talked about this before. But I think it is safe to say James Dobson no longer represents the middle of the road Christian. I don’t think I’m in the middle of the evangelical road, but I think it’s becoming clear that he’s now losing traction with the masses.

    I hate to sound like Rush Limbaugh. But I predicted sentiments like this. Middle of the road evangelicals are leaving the right-wing conservative camps in droves to express their dissatisfaction with their ignoring the policies that motivate young Christians to action. Justice. Equality. Education. Environment. These aren’t ideals to young Christians, they are minimum requirements and Dobson’s old-fogey-out-of-touch ways aren’t even on their map.

    Prime example of Dobson’s lack of connection with today’s young Evangelicals:

    Should Sen. McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can’t vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life. These decisions are my personal views and do not represent the organization with which I am affiliated. They do reflect my deeply held convictions about the institution of the family, about moral and spiritual beliefs, and about the welfare of our country. Source

    How mature. He doesn’t get his hand-picked candidate so he isn’t going to vote. (Allegedly)  Good leadership there Mr. Dobson.